Blog // Connect Puerto Rico

04/29/15

FCC Offers $10 billion for Broadband Network Upgrades

By Tom Koutsky

Today, the FCC formally offered the nation’s largest telephone companies, including AT&T, Verizon, Frontier, CenturyLink, FairPoint, and Windstream, $10 billion in subsidies to offer broadband service to over 4 million homes and businesses that are currently unserved. Today’s offer is a critical step in “Phase II” of the Connect America Fund, which will subsidize the construction of 10 Mbps down/1 Mbps up broadband networks in these areas over the next six years. These providers have until August 27, 2015 (120 days) to accept or reject the FCC’s offer on a state-by-state basis. If they reject these offers, the FCC will begin to award...

11/12/13

Connect America Funds Will Boost Broadband Access

By Wil Payton

The Federal Communications Commission has approved $31.6 million of Connect America Fund grants to connect underserved over 40,000 homes and businesses in Puerto Rico.
The Commission created the Connect America Fund to perpetuate the benefits of broadband in communities with meager market incentives for service expansion without public-private intervention.
“We are pleased that nearly 41,000 households will soon have access to high-speed Internet,” said Chris Pedersen, Connect Puerto Rico program manager. “We are working with providers and key broadband stakeholders across the island to identify the availability gaps and barriers to...

09/23/13

Maps of Proposed Connect America Fund, Phase I, Broadband Upgrades

By Connected Nation

Today, Connected Nation unveils a set of maps of the areas that broadband providers have proposed to receive subsidies to upgrade to broadband, as part of the FCC’s Connect America Fund Phase I.
In May 2013, the FCC made available to certain broadband providers up to $485 million in one-time subsidies to build-out broadband to areas that currently do not have access to fixed broadband at speeds of 3 Mbps download/768 kbps upload. In August, these service providers filed lists of areas in which they propose to build out broadband using these one-time subsidies. These filings were based on the broadband mapping data collected by...

08/23/13

Commitments Announced for FCC’s Connect America Fund: Phase 1

By Connected Nation

On August 20, larger (“price cap”) local telephone companies began making commitments to the FCC to build out fixed broadband service to thousands of homes and businesses that do not have access to broadband service today. These commitments are part of the Phase I of the FCC’s Connect America Fund (CAF), which offers one-time, per-location payments to these providers to upgrade their networks. All told, more than 600,000 homes and businesses could see broadband network upgrades as a result of this program.
Over the next few days, the FCC will review this information, compare it to the availability data on the National Broadband Map,...